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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Water In The Hole

Today was day one of the deck project. I measured twice and cut once. Or should I say, I measured multiple times, then started digging the holes for posts. Everything was going as planned. Soil here in North Carolina is not South Texas gumbo. Meaning it is not too difficult to punch through the packed top soil and break through to soft soil. Of course it helps to have a good post hole digger.
TJ is the eldest son of our other workamper. He sure is a workhorse. Eager to learn and a good kid. We encountered a couple of odd things when we dug the holes. The cabin has a septic pump next to the building about 5 feet from where we were digging. About two feet down, the hold started filling with water. My post hole digger, AKA TJ, said, there was water in the hole. Sure enough, there was water in the hole. So I asked him, "What does it smell like?" He said, "Water." I did not know water had a general smell or aroma. I know what sewer water should smell like, and this did not smell like sewer water. So we kept digging.

Then on the next hole, TJ's little brother Brogan was helping. He was digging away and said, "Whoa, that looks like a water pipe." Now that got my attention. So I am on my knees, digging mud and muck out of the hole to get below the alleged water pipe. After close inspection, it turned out to be a tree root.

Three holes done, three more to go. While working on hole number 5, we hit an obstacle. Isn't that the way things generally work out? Once we broke through the top soil, we discovered this hole is on top of what was a small pine tree. The trunk of this tree is about 2" in diameter so it should not be too difficult to get that out. My trusty drain spade shovel should get that out out with no problem. Dig. Dig. Chop Chop. Uh-oh. My trusty spade shovel just broke. Not like the handle broke, the neck of the shovel just shattered.

I've never seen that happen. Good thing I still have my Lowe's receipt. Time for another trip to Lowe's. Good thing they are close by. While there TJ and I had a hotdog for lunch.

Back at the farm, we finished the holes. I had TJ cut the beams to length so we could get them attached to the posts. That would be it for tonight. Tomorrow we will set the posts finalize the beam positioning.

After diner, I grabbed my phone, and woke it up. DRAT, My DROID is not happy.

Looks like tomorrow, I find an AT&T store to see if the extended warranty on the phone will fix it. If not, I may be converting early to an iPhone.